


Connect

by DGCatAniSiri



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, discussion of self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23288866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DGCatAniSiri/pseuds/DGCatAniSiri
Summary: Markus finds Connor contemplating a difficult matter.
Relationships: Connor/Markus (Detroit: Become Human)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 116





	Connect

The strange thing was that Markus had come to enjoy having a sleep cycle.

Strictly speaking, androids didn’t need to sleep. Still, a recharge cycle kept the various bits of machinery running properly. Even the most advanced android wasn’t capable of running entirely without pause. With the right upgrades, it was a minimal period, but... Markus found he liked having a typical sleep cycle. Maybe it was a holdover of his initial programming as a caretaker, being able to have a rigid structure to rely on, a schedule to follow. Maybe, Markus liked to think, it was a way of emphasizing to himself, if no one else, that he was as alive as any human.

This made it all the more odd to him to awaken abruptly, before the end of his sleep cycle. Androids did not have those abrupt wake ups. Either they awoke at their designated time or they were jolted out by an outside stimulus of some kind.

But looking around the room, Markus saw no signs of any obvious stimuli. No one had burst into the room, the walls were intact, and...

Connor.

His lover wasn’t in the bed. They’d both developed an appreciation of sleeping as the humans did, though they didn’t need to – many androids in Jericho had simply found a corner and charged up as quickly as possible. But... Well, leadership of the androids did offer a few perks. 

A quick ping to Connor’s systems, though, assured Markus that the other android – the other man, Markus corrected, given all the personhood bills that were being pushed through the courts at the moment, it was reasonable to just go ahead and start using the terms – was still there, just... In the bathroom. Odd place for an android to be.

Markus considered briefly just contacting Connor through the wireless. But they both had an appreciation for the “human” way of doing things, so he rose from the bed, joining his lover.

“Connor?” he asked gently, opening the door. 

The other man had slipped off his shirt, the customary suit and tie that he seemed to cling to wearing like it was skin. Examining himself in the mirror. And...

There was a knife by the sink.

The knife would be damaged more by any attempt to damage something of Connor’s systems, so that didn’t alarm Markus the way it would were they human. That much, he supposed, was a minor mercy of their android nature. Still, it was concerning to see all the same. 

“Connor?” Markus repeated softly, uncertain what was happening in Connor’s mind, and not being willing to just barge into his lover’s mind through the wireless, though they’d connected enough times that Connor had assured him that he didn’t mind.

This time, Connor turned to him, and Markus could see the sensor on the side of his head was yellow, indicating his stress. 

“What’s going on?” Markus asked, feeling some of his old caretaking processes kick in – even if it wasn’t the same as with a human, the circumstances seemed a lot like a human’s attempt at suicide, and it was worth being concerned. 

Connor looked from the knife, to Markus, and then just away from everything, as though he didn’t like the idea of his gaze lingering on anything or anyone right now. “I... I thought I should remove my sensor. Be... more like the rest of you.”

The words practically broke Markus’s heart (never mind that it was a thirium pump, it was a metaphor either way). He reached out and touched Connor’s arm, sending a flood of his feelings towards the other android, trying to make him understand how much Markus cared for him, how it hurt to see him like this. “Connor... No one is asking that of you. You fit in fine, regardless of your sensor. You shouldn’t have to change yourself just to feel like you belong here.” 

“Don’t I?” Connor still wouldn’t look to him, still avoiding eye contact. “I’m the deviant hunter, and nothing more to most of them. It’s only because of you that-”

“If it’s only because of me, then that’s their problem, not yours. You chose to be one of us, before we came together. You were one of us from no later than the escape from Jericho, and that’s all that matters. You ARE one of us, whether or not you and I are together. Anyone who doesn’t recognize that is an idiot.” Markus had been able to feel the conflict in Connor at the moment that he’d arrived, ostensibly to kill the deviant leader. Despite his orders, Connor had broken free of CyberLife’s programming, both just in the act of becoming deviant and in the moment that he broke with Amanda’s own orders and plans and refused to shoot Markus. 

If that wasn’t earning his place among the population of Jericho (New Jericho, some called it, considering the original was nothing but scrap metal at this point, but most made no distinction), then frankly, Markus really didn’t care about their opinions. They wanted him as a leader, as the face of the androids, then they had to accept that his lover was the man before them.

“Connor, even if that matters... I’m not asking you to do this, just to fit in. No one is asking this of you. It’s...” Markus found himself struggling for the right words – Connor’s problem obviously went beyond the sensor, the little LED. He was seeing it as a symbol of belonging, and even if he did remove it, there would be something else, something that came after it, some other element of himself that marked him as different among the deviants. “Connor. If you do this, and you still don’t feel like the other androids here will accept you, what do you do then?”

That actually did seem to sink in for Connor, a small relief to Markus. “I... I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about that.”

Which honestly just spoke to how much this really did weigh on Connor, considering that he normally considered everything from every possible angle before acting – for an android, such considerations could happen in seconds at most. And he’d clearly been here for some time before Markus had followed him in. 

Gently, Markus ran his hand up Connor’s arm, moving to cup his chin and make him look him in the eyes. It took Connor a moment to actually do so, and... The part of Markus that thought about the cause, about what benefited the movement to have androids recognized as equally human as any organic being, almost wished that he could take an image of this, plaster it in the face of anyone who argued otherwise, because the pain and anguish in Connor’s eyes... Who could deny that was the look of a person, someone who was hurting? The glowing yellow LED paled in comparison to the face full of unshed (non-existent – what did a machine need with tear ducts?) tears?

This time when Markus reached out to link with Connor, Connor returned the act, which relieved Markus. He could feel the anguish, the frustration, the pain that Connor felt.

The accusing looks – ‘he doesn’t belong here.’ ‘He would have killed Markus.’ ‘How do we know he’s not a sleeper agent?’ ‘We lost our home because of him.’ ‘Because of him, people died.’ ‘We can’t trust him.’ ‘How does Markus believe him?’

Markus could understand the pain and frustration. The attack on Jericho had seen too many deaths. Connor was an easy place to transfer that to. No one said anything to Connor’s face, but Connor saw it in their expressions.

It wasn’t clear to Markus if there was truth to it or just Connor’s own paranoia telling him the worst of things. Simon, Josh, and North, of course, he knew well enough to recognize that they saw an ally in Connor, not a potential enemy – well, North didn’t think of him as an active and direct threat, at any rate, which was, from her, practically a glowing recommendation. But among Markus’s closest friends and allies, he was more than accepted. 

Markus shared his memories of discussing trusting Connor with him – Simon had been willing to accept him right away, believing that it went again all their beliefs to turn away any deviant. Josh had been hesitant, unsure about trusting Cyberlife to not have some kind of dangerous programming buried in his head, but willing to offer a chance. North had been the hardest sell, and yet after the decision was made, she’d stood by it, much she had with the peaceful approach that Markus had advocated. 

And they’d been true to their word, never speaking ill of Connor’s motivations, especially as Connor had only proven Markus’s faith true. All three had privately offered their approval of the relationship that had developed between them, shared verbally and through their own connections with Markus.

Then, beyond the looks... _Amanda. How much programming had she burrowed into his neural net that he had no idea what was there? Cyberlife’s claws ran deep, and no assurances could be certain._

That was true. For all the assurances that the many programmers – all androids, of course, there wasn’t a deviant around who truly trusted any human programmer, since the ones who were aware enough of the android brain to do the brain scan would have to have come from Cyberlife, and there just was no trust there – had offered that all the malicious code and programming from Cyberlife had been removed from Connor’s mind, had died out when Amanda’s attempted takeover had failed... There just weren’t enough assurances to prevent the thought that maybe, just maybe, something remained. 

Markus could argue every point if he tried, but that wasn’t what Connor needed. An appeal to logic worked on a logic driven android.

Any android who had gone deviant was not driven by logic above all else. 

Markus could only put his love and affection into the link they shared. He admired every android who’d found their way to deviance in different ways, but he particularly admired Connor’s. Connor had been programmed to fake deviance, and instead truly had. He had broken through the programming that Amanda and Cyberlife had built into him, and the lie had become truth. 

It was that admiration that had led Markus to fall in love with Connor. Connor as he was, not as he “should” be. 

After all, their whole fight was for the ability and right to decide that for themselves. And the sensor was a part of Connor.

Connection, the link... Humans could easily simply view it as the android’s answer to sex – after all, only androids designed for sex really came with working genitalia, since they were the only ones who really needed those parts – but it was a form of intimacy of its own. Friends or lovers linked. Yet, when Markus linked with Connor... They did more than simply share emotions and memories.

In their links, more than his links with any other, Markus and Connor functionally sharing thoughts, to the point that they were almost a gestalt, almost more a joint being in two bodies, rather than two individuals. It went beyond sharing thoughts, even – one of them would start to say something (“say” being an interpretation – they were “speaking” at a level of processing that in the time it took to verbalize what they shared, the “conversation” could have moved on in thousands of different directions), then the other would finish it.

“I want you here.”

“I want you with me.”

“You’re beautiful as you are.”

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

“Don’t let me hurt you.”

“I could never.”

In the space of just seconds, they separated from the link. Markus could see Connor processing the emotions that Markus had shared, and was doing the same himself. He couldn’t help but laugh to himself – how much of human history was warfare and violence caused by misunderstandings, all of which androids could bypass in the span of seconds?

If one were to get philosophical, one might think that humanity built their children in a way to avoid their gravest of mistakes, only to fall prey to those same attitudes they’d managed to design androids to avoid as they stepped forward.

“Connor... You don’t need to make yourself fit in with the rest of Jericho. When we removed our sensors... It was as much to protect ourselves as anything else.” Markus pulled Connor into a hug, feeling a warm spread in him that had nothing to do with the link as he felt Connor’s weight against him. He pressed a gentle kiss to the sensor, now a steady and comforting blue. “I think it’s beautiful. It’s part of you, so why wouldn’t it be?”

The pleased noise from Connor soothed Markus.


End file.
